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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5777665" data-attributes="member: 4937">I think you are quite right in your analysis as far as it goes, and it would certainly be true that this perception that the best way to protect the group was to protect the individual and the best way to prosper the individual would be to prosper the group would be a common stance and justification by the two sides of the debate.  And many people would genuinely believe it, and perhaps have good reason for their beliefs.But I don't think its inherent to the two stances.  It's a particular nuance of the two.  But I think that ultimately the chaotic can say, "The individual first, the individual second, and society can go to hell.", and ultimately the lawful can say, "If we have to use the bones of our individuals as grist and their blood as lubricant, the society first, the society second, and the society always."  Whether they openly state that or not, that's where the two beliefs end up in practice.  You kind of hint at it yourself when you have your mouths say things like, "if some people have to be coerced into doing what's obviously best, then those people were being selfish anyway and deserve to be thwacked so that the needs of the many can be served."  I note that you _don't_ put the equivalent statements in the mouths of your chaotic spokesperson, which, if I may be so bold is probably a big clue about where your preferences lie.And this is where it gets hard for people.  While those tendencies might lean to evil, they can be found even in the good components of those philosophies.  A Paladin finds himself forced to order individuals to their deaths as if they weren't individuals.  A chaotic finds himself having to stand in defiance of the world to protect his rights, or that of a loved one.  One of the hardest problems I find people have defining law and chaos in isolation is not defining it in relation to good, or conversely not defining good or evil in your relationship to self or others.So to pick on him, Nivenus gives a very good short law and chaos run down.  But then he blows it by defining Good in a way that is practically a synonym for law, and Evil in a way that is practically a synonym for how he has defined chaos.Note:The essential nature of both law and good can't be 'acting selflessly'.   Likewise, the essential nature of both chaos and evil can't be 'acting selfishly'.  There is I think more too it than that.  After all, 'lawful evil' is 'evil that acts selflessly' because that's what the individual components of the LE society does.  And likewise, 'chaotic good' is 'good that acts self-centeredly'.   People often have a very hard time with that last one, but one of the more obvious examples is the Maxim: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."  (Note, I'm not arguing Christianity is CG, and don't want to go there.)  That 'golden rule' has often been criticized because it defines good in a relationship to oneself - the assumption of what you want best for yourself is what is best for others as well.   There is a giving aspect to it, but its a giving in relationship to the self and depending on your own consciousness to be the judge.  Not everyone is happy with that being part of the idea of what good is.In a very simple way, the core of good is belief in the value of construction, creation, healing, and nurturing - both of the self and of others.  While evil is the belief in the opposite values: deconstruction, destruction, violence, and pain.  The composite alignments wield these two notions.  For example, CG wants to use about construction, creation, healing, and nurturing to bring about change as an act of individual fulfillement.  CE gets individual fulfillment by utilizing the opposite actions to bring about change.  And so forth.  But good and evil independently are rather unconcerned with the question of the individual versus the society, and consider it something of a distraction versus the important point.  Good in and of itself would say that both selfishness and selflessness are equally wrong-headed acts of destruction.</blockquote>

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